Filmophilia interviews Ridley Scott on Prometheus

[deezelboy]

Icelandic film site Filmophilia's editor Erlingur Gretar recently interviewed Ridley Scott, who was quite forthcoming about Prometheus.

The full interview can be found here, but below are some choice Ridley excerpts:

On the Prometheus link to the Alien films, Ridley says it's not linked at all.  However, 'By the end of the third act you start to realize there's a DNA of the very first alien, but none of the subsequent aliens. To tell you what that is is a pity, and I'm not going to tell you, because it's actually pretty good, pretty organic to the process and to the original. But we go back, we don't go forward.'

On whether we see the Alien itself: 'No. Absolutely not. They squeezed it dry. He (the xenomorph) did very well. (He laughs) He survived, he's now in Disneyland in Orlando, and no way am I going back there. How did he end up in Disneyland? I saw him in Disneyland, Jesus Christ!'

On the Space Jockeys: 'I've only done two science-fictions, but I was always amazed that no one asked who the hell the Space Jockey was. He wasn’t even called the Space Jockey. During the film they started to call it the Space Jockey. I don't know who started that one off. I always thought it was amazing that no one ever asked who he was, and why was he there? What was all that about? I sat thinking about this for a while and thought, well, there's a story! And the other four [films] missed it! So, here it is.'

On Giger's involvement: 'I showed him what we were doing, showed him the story and he liked it a lot. So he's doing a little bit of work for me. He's been doing some murals, big murals, which we'll see in almost one of the first chambers we encounter when we land where we're gonna go.'

On Noomi Rapace: 'I saw Dragon Tattoo a year ago, the first one. And, "Wow, who is that?" and from that I said, "This is the girl that's going to do the film." She came to L.A. and I met with her, and discovered that she's in fact extraordinarily posh, as opposed to punk. So there was a real actress. A real actress, very, very good. So, I don't know, she will just do great. ...I would say that Noomi's even more volatile and passionate [than Sigourney Weaver]. And sure, she looks good. But the combination of that and intelligence is a great combination.'

On Charlize Theron: 'she hangs around 'till the end. (He laughs) '

There's also a fair amount of Ridley looking back at Alien, and a very odd conversation about intelligent design, Erich von Daniken and the like.

Full interview at: http://filmophilia.com/2011/12/17/interview-ridley-scott-talks-prometheus-giger-beginning-of-man-and-original-alien/

[Hieronymus]

I find it interesting that both Paul Anderson and Ridley Scott drew inspiration from von Daniken.

[Thedus]

Honestly, that doesn't really surprise me.  It's a relatively easy "creation myth" to use for sci-fi.  It's been used, in one way or another, for a great many films and books.

Also, I'd wager there was some hinting of this concept when ALIEN was made.  The unused ideas of the pyramid, the "hieroglyphics" and so on all rang very familiar bells to our own past cultures.  As an example:



They are obviously different in subject matter, but the overall form, structure, and design are very similar.

Now, does it bug me?  Yes.  They idea of our existing being aided by, or the creation of, aliens has gotten a little old in science fiction.  ...Why do we need to be linked to aliens at all in order to make a good story?

[deezelboy]

Or there's this (not the best image, but I think Giger borrowed a lot from Ancient Egyptian mythology, especially Nut):

Now, does it bug me?  Yes.  They idea of our existing being aided by, or the creation of, aliens has gotten a little old in science fiction.  ...Why do we need to be linked to aliens at all in order to make a good story?

I suspect, given Scott's admiration of Kubrick, that this is his stab at 2001.

[wmmvrrvrrmm]

Or there's this (not the best image, but I think Giger borrowed a lot from Ancient Egyptian mythology, especially Nut):

And I supposed he mixed it with what he could see of Cobb's hieroglyphs which include an egg shaped form in the sky area



And this might be an alternative to the image of Nut and indeed Geb below with something bursting upwards, ahem....